


I Don’t Like Your Fashion Business, Mister

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cap Septender, Clothing, Developing Friendships, Fashion & Couture, Gen, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: “Relax,” Natasha assured him, “you’re in good hands.”“Oh, I know. It’s just...” and he waved a hand vaguely toward the racks of the men’s department. “I wasn’t expecting we’d start somewhere likethis.”





	I Don’t Like Your Fashion Business, Mister

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/gifts).

> This was written for the [Cap Septender challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/CapSeptender/profile), which is all about softness for characters in the Captain America canon.

Steve surveyed the battlefield, making mental notes of strategic escape routes, strength of the enemy, and what resources he’d have. The Chitauri had been less daunting—possibly because he hadn’t really known what he was getting into, unlike this situation, and defensive combat was a thing he understood. This? All this did was fill him with dread.

“So, what are you doing for fun now that you’re back?” Natasha asked, and Steve scoffed in response.

“Not this.”

She gave him one of her long-suffering half smiles and motioned to the racks of very expensive-looking clothing. “It’ll be less painful than you think, promise. It’s mostly the sticker shock that’ll hurt.” Steve’d believe that a lot more easily if he wasn’t eyeing a lot of people dressed in very ridiculous outfits, drenched in items loudly proclaiming their designer names, for that status people today seemed so desperate for. _Fashion victims,_ she’d called them.

“You keep saying that.” SHIELD had given Steve a basic wardrobe when they’d first dumped him in the Brooklyn apartment: lots of stodgy garments they’d likely chosen because it was how their dads or grandfathers dressed, shapes that they hoped would feel familiar, like pleated trousers and loose button-down shirts. No price tags to be found, of course—wouldn’t want to give the old guy an attack—though the care labels told him a lot of what he needed to know: it was all cheap crap made overseas in sweatshops (he’d done his reading about what had happened to unions and factories in the States). Stuff you threw away because no one mended anything anymore. The world was disposable now, and was it any wonder the climate had changed?

Yet enough jokes about being an old man, and his motorcycle trip after the New York battle, had made him realize he needed more than a couple pairs of pants and a few shirts, at least if he wanted to fit in here. Not that he’d ever feel like he belonged—Bucky’d been the one who wanted to see the future, not Steve—but he was here now, and he wasn’t going back. Steve didn’t know her well, but he’d zeroed in on Natasha as the best person for shopping pointers—the human fellows on the Avengers weren’t what he’d call stylish, and she always seemed to wear cute little outfits that were practical as well as what he thought of as chic. 

“Relax,” Natasha assured him, “you’re in good hands.”

“Oh, I know. It’s just...” and he waved a hand vaguely toward the racks of the men’s department. “I wasn’t expecting we’d start somewhere like _this._” He’d seen Barney’s when he’d been walking around downtown one day, the kinds of people who went inside. Bonwit’s was gone, as were B. Altman and Gimbels and a host of others, but a few names he recognized still survived, and he wondered why Natasha hadn’t chosen one of those, like Bloomingdale’s. He reminded himself he’d willingly put himself in her hands. She had certain qualities that reminded him of Peggy, and he would never question Peggy’s tactical plans.

“Said the guy who showed up to see Thor off wearing a Belstaff bike jacket.” She flashed him a scolding look for even considering such an argument.

“I snagged it second-hand,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “At a used-bike-gear shop, and I couldn’t quite believe it was my size. But it was still alarmingly pricey.”

With a wrinkled nose, she moved toward the racks and said, “You get used to it. A lot of stuff is only expensive because it has a designer label, but these days, I think, you also pay for quality. Spend more now for a nice jacket that’ll last for decades and never go out of fashion instead a cheapo one that’ll be in pieces before the trend dies down.”

It made him shake his head, that people were content with the state of such things. 

“And I know,” Natasha added, taking hold of his shirt placket and gently shaking it, “this is not to your tastes, even though it’s fairly decent quality. I saw you in some of those newsreels, and that day in Central Park. The way you wore your service uniform back then, and those boots and that jacket and your shades now. There’s good material to work with and I think you have more swagger than you’re letting on.”

Her green eyes flashed, because she liked homing in on what made him tick. He appreciated her subtle sarcasm, it was much more in line with his sense of humor than Stark’s quippy meanness. Natasha and Barton put him at ease in a different way than Thor or Dr. Banner did. He didn’t know if he’d ever be more than teammates with them, but that was okay. She held up a “sweater” that made him blink, and a salesman swept toward them, gushing, “That would look _incredible_ on you.”

“It’s see-through,” Steve eventually managed. “You’d see...” and he couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the thought.

“_Exactly,_” the young man said. Natasha shared a look with the guy that Steve couldn’t quite decipher, some unspoken future fashion language, and the fellow gave a little “mm-hmm” before swanning away.

“You could try it on. The ladies and the gays would thank me later.” She held her phone up as though snapping a photo.

“The right-wingers would scream about desecrating a national icon.” He pulled a few less revealing things off the racks for closer inspection. When he caught her eye, she was scrutinizing him, a soft understanding in the drop of her chin, the slow and thoughtful blink of her gaze. It was almost enough to make him immediately walk that statement back, but Steve knew it wouldn’t do much good, not with Natasha. _He_ didn’t think of himself as an icon, it was simply a label that had been handed to him, much like the apartment and the clothes.

“Do you like those? You know what we should do—you pick some things you think would go well together, and we can use that as a starting point to see what you’re drawn to. Once we sort that out, we can use that as a basis, and then match shoes and accessories.”

It was as good a plan as any, so he wandered around, trying his best not to look at the ghastly price tags and letting her figure out which sizes to try—they were a mystery to him these days. The young man who’d talked to them before set him up with a fitting room, and he tried a few items on before stepping out to the little anteroom where Natasha was sitting to show her. 

Who would have expected Natasha Romanov to wolf-whistle? It made him chuckle as he pushed the sleeves of the shirt up and stuck his hands in his pockets, embarrassed. “Ugh, no, don’t do that, it ruins the lines.” He didn’t know what lines she was talking about, because he was certain she was looking at his rear end. Stepping toward him, she straightened his collar and gave him a thumbs-up. “You look fantastic—_that_ is the kind of button-down you should be wearing, and those pants are a million times better sitting lower on your waist like that.” It _was_ a nice shirt, a lovely textured weave in a blue that reminded him of Bucky’s famous jacket. “You could wear this for things like interviews, or maybe on Sesame Street or something.”

Steve squinted at her. 

“Okay, we should start a list of popular culture you _have to_ become familiar with.”

“I already am. Keeping one, that is.” 

“I’m sorry. I know this must be really hard.” She finished rolling his sleeves back down and buttoning the cuffs. 

It was, and he hated it, but he kept his mouth shut and motioned toward the dressing-room door. She liked the next outfit, though not as much, and they cycled through a bunch more before he hit his limit. They sorted through the hangers for the items he agreed to buy, and she asked the salesman to hold on to them for after they’d eaten. The guy was now blatantly flirtatious, although Steve wasn’t certain if it was directed at him or her, or maybe even both of them. That shook him constantly. There were so many societal norms Steve confronted on a daily basis he’d never expected to change, but out of all of them, sexual preferences being openly shared had shocked him the most. 

“There’s a great restaurant upstairs,” Natasha said, “and I think you need a break before we accessorize. Though you have to swear you won’t gripe about the prices.”

Steve rolled his eyes but trailed her to the escalator; they waited a few minutes for a table before sitting down. The drink prices nearly made him choke, but he could absolutely use a nice stiff drink after all that shopping—and now that they were sitting there, he realized how incredibly hungry he was, so he let her order a couple appetizers for the table. They were silent for a while until she asked, “So, Fury’s offer... Have you made a decision?”

With a narrow look, he sipped his Manhattan and affected an air of nonchalance. “I didn’t think that was for public consumption yet.” 

She pointed her gimlet stare at him. “I’m not really the public, though, am I? And if you’re going to be running the teams I’m on, it’s only fair to know.”

He chewed the inside of his lip. “I’m considering it.” New York was as foreign to him now as Washington, D.C., would be, so it wasn’t as if he had much to tether himself to here. “If I do, I’ll have to get a place with a nice big closet.”

The corner of her mouth tugged up, and the waiter arrived to take their order. Steve had kept his yap shut about them charging twenty-five dollars for a plate of raw vegetables and dip, but he was damned if he would pay the extortionate prices for the more appealing entrées. “I’ll have the salmon,” Nat said, folding her menu, and when he began to say, “I’ll get the cheeseburg—” she cut him off sharply with “and he’ll have the cast iron shell steak.”

His glare didn’t perturb her in the least. “I do not need the most expensive item on the menu. I know this is New York, but _Jesus_.”

“What did I say?” she challenged in a tone that would brook no insolence. He was as outgunned by her as he’d always been with Bucky or Peggy.

It took them a while to find a more conversational topic. “You know, I wasn’t the hopeless case back then everyone at SHIELD seems to think I was,” he explained. “I actually had decent-looking clothes, considering my financial limitations.”

“You must have had a hard time figuring out your sizes when you changed. You didn’t seem to know them earlier.”

“That’s mostly because how they do it now is different and so much of this shop is European. I wasn’t the puny putz they portray—I really wasn’t that short, mostly just scrawny. The mean height for men in, say, 1941 was five-six, and I was five-four. That’s still taller than you.”

Her mouth twisted in a little moue of pleasure. 

“And Audie Murphy was five-five. So. They made clothes for men my size, I didn’t have to shop in the boys’ department. It’s just that I didn’t have the sartorial reputation Buck did because I wasn’t always trying to impress gals.”

“Huh.” Natasha cocked her head and played with the straw in her drink. “I didn’t realize he was a skirt-chaser. In those newsreels, I thought you two...” and she glanced away, thinking better of saying exactly what she thought. Good, because that was personal, and it would stay that way.

“To dance.”

Steve abruptly focused on his meal, letting his irritation get the best of him, so Natasha changed the subject. “Other than the price of things these days, what shocked you the most about fashions and how people looked?”

“Men wearing undershirts in public—T-shirts—outside the gym or without a shirt over them or something. That must have started after the war, so many guys got used to wearing them for training, I suppose. And...leggings on ladies. That was an eye-opener, especially when I saw someone wearing some that were kind of skin-toned. They’re very...tight.”

“Oh yeah? How do feel about a good mini-skirt and thigh-high boots, then?”

“No complaints.”

She laughed then, a real laugh so unlike her careful, small chuckles, and it made him smile. They continued to talk about clothes until they’d finished their meal. “How was your steak?” Natasha asked, deliberately provoking, as she set her napkin on the table. 

“I think you want me to say worth every penny.” All he got was a raised eyebrow when he threw down the bill payment and tip in cash. “Like you reminded me when we left my place, I have all those piles of back pay.”

They went down to the shoe department, where he picked up a handsome pair of gray suede lace-ups. When he looked at the price sticker, he nearly burst a blood vessel. “You gotta be shitting me, Nat,” he said, sotto voce. “It’s one thing to pay so much for shirts and pants, but I could afford to feed a few poor families for a year for the cost of a pair of shoes. I don’t want to even look at those belts. Good god.”

He was more than ready to get out of here; they had shopping bags and garment bags full of stuff. She assessed him, took the shoes out of his hand, and went in the direction of the escalator. “I’ve got some other ideas. You’ve humored me, now I’ll let you off the hook.” 

Outside, she pulled out her phone and muttered darkly, “Don’t you even think of trying to get me on the subway.” Within a few minutes of her punching a button on the screen, a sleek black car pulled up. SHIELD, again—why was he surprised. They went in the direction of Soho, where she told the driver, “The Levi’s store.” Now, this was something he recognized—he found himself pulling far more things off the shelves and racks here. 

Natasha hummed appreciatively when he modeled a few things for her. “Damn, you wear clothes well. Jeans, T-shirt, jacket—pure James Dean.” Steve didn’t want to admit he didn’t know who that was. 

“I can get some running shoes on my own, and I’m sure there’s plenty of places to go for dress shoes that won’t cost as much as a car,” he told her as they were leaving the store, loaded down with yet more bags. “I’m a big boy now.”

“Aw. But accessories are my favorite part.”

It was getting on late afternoon now, and he’d taken up enough of her time, Steve thought. If he took Fury’s offer in Washington, they’d have lots of time to shop down there. “You must have somewhere to be.”

With a quick shake of her head, Natasha said, “No, I blocked out the day for you.” She appeared to genuinely enjoy his company. “I actually had a thought, about a place in your neck of the woods.” She told the driver “Greenpoint,” as she got in, and Steve’s brows rose—Natasha was full of surprises. 

They ended up not too far from the ferry, parking in front of a rundown building sandwiched between an Indian grocery and a dive bar. _Brooklyn Men’s_, the window said, and when they stepped inside, Steve felt like he’d woken up from the ice only one decade later instead of six: it was crammed with circular racks of suits and shirts and pants, so tight you could hardly move around; the walls were covered with shelves stuffed full of packaged shirts or folded jeans or underwear; the glass cases near the register held rack after rack of ties and belts; and the tops of the clothes racks were piled with other accessories like handkerchief packages and billfolds. “This is _perfect_,” Steve breathed. In the back was a little alcove with shoes and...hats. He could hardly believe his eyes.

“I don’t know why I didn’t start here,” Natasha said, annoyed with herself. “I wanted you to have some really nice, well-crafted pieces as a foundation, but I should have worked you up the ladder rather than down. Inflict less of an assault here, then work in to the middle ground at Levi’s, before hitting you with the heavy artillery at Barney’s or Sak’s. Which I will take you to another day.” Her smile was more like a threat than a promise. She led him further inside and made a noise in her throat. “Though ugh. It’s infested with hipsters.”

“Hipsters? You say that like it’s something bad. Is that another word that’s changed meanings, like _awesome_?” English had become another language altogether.

“Yeah, I guess so. Google it when you get home.” Her gaze landed on a couple of young men trying on hats. “On second thought, don’t, it’ll annoy you. It’s just...used for young people who are kind of...appropriating things from your generation in an ironic way, these days. Hence the hats.” Natasha stuck her tongue out and made a face, then nodded at a wall whose shelves were jammed willy-nilly with clothing. “Aside from cheaper jeans and shirts, you can get your unmentionables here too and avoid someplace like Target or shopping online.” She added a wink, and he smiled.

“This place looks like it hasn’t changed since my day. I didn’t know anything like this still existed.” How had real estate prices not driven them out? There was a little old man measuring someone for a suit, and a middle-aged woman behind the counter ringing someone up. Although they’d obviously made a few concessions to modern technology, like the cash register, everything else appeared to be original from just after the war—“Since 1948,” it had said on the door.

They didn’t buy too much stuff, since he’d already bought so much that day, but he promised the old man—son of the original owner—he’d get back there very soon to be measured for a suit. “You’ll need something more formal, especially now that you’re team leader for the Avengers,” Nat had pointed out, even though he’d agreed to no such thing. “Get something tailored to those massive shoulders and your little wasp waist.” It was so odd how men mostly only wore suits and ties to work or for events now. One of the first things he’d learned to do as a boy was tie a tie, and he thought about Bucky, always so well-dressed and sharp-looking, presentable, a gentleman. These days, it was more about where you shopped and what labels you wore than how turned out you were. 

“If you’re not tapped out,” Natasha began, perhaps a little cautiously, “I thought we could take this stuff to your place and maybe go to a movie or something—there’s a few things out now I think you’d enjoy.”

He opened the car door for her and she slid inside, which gave him a moment to think. Socializing hadn’t really been on his agenda since he’d come back from his road trip, but he supposed he owed it to her to try. “Okay,” Steve said as he sat beside her. “But there’s...uh...one more thing on my modernization list that I want your advice on.” Her eyes widened, and she looked eager to hear it. 

That was how they found themselves in front of a barbershop. “This is the only time hipsters are useful for something—you’ll get a much more current cut here than you might in the kind of place you’re used to.” It was bright and shiny and played trance-like, slow music very loudly, and full of impossibly young people of all genders. Under the smell of stale cigarettes and marijuana, Steve caught a whiff of bay rum, though, which eased him in.

A young woman with dozens of tattoos and piercings recognized them immediately, rushing to get him in her chair. “That was my day off,” Audrey told them, “and I was taking my cousin who was up from Virginia to the Met. You guys _totally_ saved our lives. You saved everyone’s lives. You’re so awesome.” Steve watched pieces of his hair float to the ground, a little alarmed by how much she was taking off, but he’d told Natasha he wanted something fresher—which he’d left to her to translate for Audrey. 

When she was done—and done with her story and plans to get tattoos of the Black Widow symbol and Steve’s shield—Audrey artfully mussed his hair up with some goop and whipped the smock off. “You look _amazing_. Not that you didn’t before, but you just look so cool now.” He stared at himself in the mirror, at the short hair sticking up in a casually tousled way, the more exaggerated sideburns she’d sculpted. Natasha was smiling, her eyes sparkling. Even shopping, Steve had never seen her without the crafted posture that kept her emotions veiled, but she was genuinely happy now. Happy to have this time together. 

“You do look fantastic. How does it feel?” Nat asked as she ran her fingers through his hair, as if she was giving him a blessing. 

Steve glanced at the man reflected back to him in the mirror, then at her. “Kind of like maybe I belong here.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" because I'm also fulfilling another challenge, for the [Leonard Cohen Title Challenge](https://hall-no.dreamwidth.org/265.html), which arose after discussions about that [hilarious Tumblr post](https://sofiabanefics.tumblr.com/post/187625002958) using titles of fanworks to illustrate how overused "Hallelujah" is. In the spirit of the challenge, I picked lyrics from "any freaking song but 'Hallelujah.'" Kill two challenges with one fic stone, I guess.
> 
> It's always driven me a bit crazy that people who know nothing about style or fashion insist that Steve's clothes in Winter Soldier and after are old man clothes, because no. That blue jacket in the first half is obviously pricey, and the well-fitted jeans and T-shirt are classics. His leather jackets are amazing, so are his boots. This is a guy who knows how to dress and what quality is, and I liked thinking of him just needing that little bit of Nat help to find where it is in this century.
> 
> On [tumblr.](https://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/187889500140/new-fic-for-cap-septender-challenge)


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